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(Image credit: Shanghai Hailanyun Technology) China has launched what it claims is the world’s first wind-powered undersea data center — a sealed, seawater-cooled cluster sitting 35 meters beneath the surface off the coast of Shanghai. The $226 million project, located in the Lin-gang Special Area near the city’s southern tip, is pitched as the prototype for a new kind of energy-efficient, land-sparing cloud infrastructure.
According to Lin-gang’s own development committee, the project is designed to reach megawatts in its full build, with a first phase of 2.3 megawatts already completed. At a planned 24 megawatt capacity, the Lin‑gang facility would be substantially larger than Microsoft ’s earlier Natick experiment, which remained a research module rather than a commercial‑scale build. The Lin-gang unit is backed by a state-heavy consortium, including Shenergy, China Telecom’s Shanghai branch, INESA, and CCCC Third Harbor Engineering. Shanghai Hicloud, the operator, says it’s already exploring a cooperation agreement for a 500-megawatt version for offshore sites.
The engineering behind it is pretty simple at a glance. Seal your server racks in watertight capsules, drop them on the seabed, and let the ocean itself handle the thermal load . By avoiding chillers and using seawater as the heat sink, Hicloud claims it can push its power usage effectiveness below 1.15, which is lower than the best land-based hyperscale averages and China’s minimum of 1.25.
China to launch commercial underwater data center
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cnina-deploys-wind-powered-underwater-data-center#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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